American Academy of Arts and Letters Announces 2011 Music Award Winners

The American Academy of Arts and Letters has announced the fifteen recipients of this year’s awards in music, which total $165,000.

Four composers will each receive a $7,500 Arts and Letters Award in Music, which honors outstanding artistic achievement and acknowledges the composer who has arrived at his or her own voice. Each will receive an additional $7,500 toward the recording of one work. The winners are Karim Al-Zand, David Dzubay, Steven Mackey, and Lewis Spratlan.

Two Goddard Lieberson fellowships of $15,000, endowed in 1978 by the CBS Foundation, are given to mid-career composers of exceptional gifts. This year they will go to John Aylward and Lansing McLoskey.

Rand Steiger will receive the Walter Hinrichsen Award for the publication of a work by a gifted composer. This award was established by the C. F. Peters Corporation, music publishers, in 1984.

Harmony Ives, the widow of Charles Ives, bequeathed to the Academy the royalties of Charles Ives’ music, which has enabled the Academy to give the Ives awards in music since 1970. Two Charles Ives Fellowships, of $15,000 each, will be awarded to Dan Visconti and Jay Wadley.

The winners were selected by a committee of Academy members: Ezra Laderman (chairman), David Del Tredici, Fred Lerdahl, Bernard Rands, Steven Stucky, and Yehudi Wyner. The awards will be presented at the Academy’s annual ceremonial in May. Candidates for music awards are nominated by the 250 members of the Academy.

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